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Tag Archive | Dinner Rolls

These garlic knots are to die for and incredibly easy to make. The first time I ever had a garlic knot was at an Italian restaurant in Florida, and I was hooked! I wanted to go to that place all the time just for the garlic knots, lol! When we moved to Massachusetts I started having garlic knot withdrawals! There is not a single place near us that serves them, and even if they did I highly doubt they would be as good. So I was determined to make my own, and dare I say these might even be better than the ones we loved so much in Florida. You might want to make a double batch because everyone will be begging for more, at least that is what happens around here 🙂 You can also freeze leftovers (if you have any) and then reheat in the oven.

I started by looking for an easy pizza dough recipe, and found an awesome one on The Fauxmartha. I just made a couple of changes and had my perfect dough.

When I was little, my dad used to take my sister Amanda and I to visit family in Texas every summer. When we would go visit my Nanny (great-grandma) in Palestine she would always have lots of yummy food ready when we got there. We would have a great meal, all of the best southern comfort foods. Then we would sit on her front porch and watch literally HUNDREDS of hummingbirds swarm the feeders at sunset. One of the things I really looked forward to were her homemade rolls. This is not her recipe, but it must be pretty darn close! I took one bite of these, warm out of the oven with some honey butter and it flooded my mind with memories of my Nanny. I found this recipe on Your Homebased Mom. I followed it exactly the first time, but this time I attempted to make it a little healthier. I figured I wouldn’t feel so guilty about wanting to devour the entire batch by myself lol. These are SO soft and tender and don’t take long to whip up. It is more work than opening a can of dough from the fridge but I promise you it is worth it. Your house will smell like a bakery, and best of all you will get bragging rights! lol.

In your mixing bowl, combine the water, oil, yeast and honey – allow to sit for 15 minutes. This is proofing the yeast, it should start to foam up like this:

The original recipe I tried said to use your dough hook with a stand mixer for this next part… however when I tried that the dough just “climbed” up the hooks and made a big mess. I prefer just to mix this recipe by hand. Add in your salt, egg and flour until well incorporated. The original recipe says to use bread flour or all-purpose flour, but since I was trying to make it a little healthier I used 2 cups of unbleached all-purpose flour, 1 cup of whole wheat flour, then 1/2 cup of finely ground oatmeal (I just put quick oats into my food processor to grind them up) Now both times I made these, that was not enough flour. I was left with a very thin and sticky dough. At this point add in 1/4 cup of flour at a time until your dough starts forming a ball and is not sticky anymore. Each time I added an additional 1 and 1/2 cups of flour (this can vary by where you live and the weather so this is why I say add in 1/4 cup at a time, you don’t want to add too much) Knead for just a couple of minutes until its soft and smooth. Your dough should look something like this:

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees and grease a 9×13 baking dish. Form dough into 12 balls and place into the greased dish.

Don’t worry if they are not perfect. Somehow I ended up with balls that were slightly bigger than the rest. I put them on the outside edge so they will cook through. Let them rise for 10 minutes. Then bake for 10 minutes or until golden brown on top (it took about 13 minutes for our oven).

At this point you can brush them with half of a stick of melted butter, garlic butter or my personal favorite; honey butter. I use half of a stick of butter and an equal amount of local raw honey YUM!

Beware though… these are so good you might have to protect them from cute little roll thieves!